Always Now

Paperback | May 15, 2003

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about

The three volumes of Always Now contain all of Margaret Avison's published books of poetry. The author has removed a very few poems: `Public Address' (from Winter Sun), `The Two Selves' and `In Eporphyrial Harness' (from The Dumbfounding), `Highway in April', `The Evader's Meditation', and `Until Christmas' (from sunblue), `Living the Shadow', `Insomnia' and `Beginning Praise' (from No Time), `Having Stopped Smoking' and `Point of Entry' (from Selected Poems). The opening section of volume one, `From Elsewhere', is arranged according to date of publication, from 1932 to 1991, the date of Selected Poems. `From Elsewhere' includes the `Uncollected' and `New Poems' of that book, except for the two noted above and `The Butterfly', which is here in its original form. All of the poems in Always Now having been considered and reconsidered, and small corrections having been made, the book contains definitively all of the published poems up to 2002 that Margaret Avison wishes to preserve.

About The Author

One of Canada's most respected poets, Margaret Avison was born in Galt, Ontario, lived in Western Canada in her childhood, and then in Toronto. In a productive career that stretched back to the 1940s, she produced seven books of poems, including her first collection, Winter Sun (1960), which she assembled in Chicago while she was ther...

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From the Author

`Collected Poems sounds like a ``closing of the books,'' of my books, after a lifetime of writing, although nobody holds me to that. The process has been good: odds and ends tided up and the lot put in order. Re-reading has helped put all these years' output into perspective for me. If any reader wonders about certain trees or their place in this forest, my survey may serve him as well.'-- from Margaret Avison's `Foreword'

Table of Contents

Volume One

Foreword

From Elsewhere

The PrairieOpen WindowDirgeThe ButterflyNevernessThe Valiant VacationistSong but Oblique to '47The IconoclastsPerspectiveUnseasonedDiminuendoThe Local and the LakefrontThe Typographer's Ornate Symbol at the End of a Chapter or a StoryA Parallels Poem: HearingLetter to David Solway re his `The Piano in the House in the Woods'Almost All Bogged DownA Thief in the NightContinued StoryDesign

Winter Sun

The Apex AnimalAll Fools' EveDispersed TitlesChronic PreludeNot the Sweet Cicely of Gerardes HerballCivility a Bogey or Two Centuries of Canadian CitiesTennisSnowUnbroken LineageButterfly Bones: Sonnet against SonnetsJonathan, O JonathanMeeting Together of Poles and Latitudes (in Prospect)The Fallen, Fallen WorldGrammarian on a Lakefront Park BenchAtlantis and the Department StoreThe World Still NeedsDeathNew Year's PoemBanffHiatusFrom a ProvincialNovember 23To Professor X, Year YThe Swimmer's MomentUnfinished After-Portrait or Stages of MourningThawThe ArtistEasterExtra-PoliticalIntra-PoliticalWatershedMordent for a MelodyApocalyptic?ApocalypticsRich Boy's Birthday through a WindowOur Working Day May Be MenacedStray Dog, near EcullyIdentityRigor VirisRondeau RedoubleVoluptuaries and OthersR. I. P.On the Death of France Darte Scott (Upon the Birth of Twin Sons Who Later Died)Jael's PartSpanA ConversationThe Mirrored ManBirth DayA Friend's FriendFar Off from UniversitySeptember StreetThe Agnes Cleves Papers

The Dumbfounding

Old ... Young....Two Mayday SelvesPaceTwilightBlack-White under Green: May 18, 1965 Micro-MetroRiding and WavesIn TimeUntil Silenced: To I. A.The MournerMany As TwoJuly ManWordsPsalm 19ControversyA StoryThe Store SeedsA Child: Marginalia on an Epigraph The AbsorbedFor Tinkers Who Travel on FootThe Earth That Falls AwayBranchesMiniature Biography of One of My Father's FriendsWho Died a Generation AgoIn TruthFirstPerson... Person or A Hymn on and to the Holy GhostFive BreaksThe WordThe DumbfoundingSearching and SoundingA Prayer Answered by PrayerFor Dr. and Mrs. DresserThe Christian's Year in MiniatureReport from the Pedestrians' OutpostA Sad SongOnceLonely LoverJanitor Working on Threshold BestialitiesCanadian / InvertedWalking Behind, en Route, in Morning, in DecemberHot JuneNatural / UnnaturalIn a Season of UnemploymentSimon: finisChristmas: AnticipationAnd AroundTransitA Nameless OneUrban TreeUnspeakable

Translations

Ode to BartokOf Tyranny, in One BreathFarm, at Dark, on the Great Plain

Editorial Reviews

`The design and layout of this work is up to the usual high standards of The Porcupine's Quill. Margaret Avison deserves no less for her beautifully crafted and profound work. Her artistic integrity and spiritual depth are everywhere apparent in her poetry.'